Baba Yaga's Playful Tease
A low groan escaped my lips.
My head throbbed, my stomach felt bloated, and my body lay heavy and sluggish.
It was as if my strength had surged earlier, yet now a feverish heat raged through me. Why did that sensation linger so strongly?
So… what was the last thing I remembered?
It clicked.
Right. That cursed rainbow pie.
I could still picture how I had crammed three of them into my stomach somehow, but after finishing the final meat pie, my mind went completely blank.
“You’re awake at last, Modubu.”
“Baba Yaga-nim?”
The sound was soft and cooing.
When my eyes fluttered open, Baba Yaga was kneading a blob of green jelly-like slime between her fingers, giggling like a child.
…Why was that even here?
The glowing ichor artifact I had salvaged from the abandoned factory.
Baba Yaga, humming with delight, idly toyed with the green gel while I lay unconscious nearby. She looked exactly like a kindergarten kid poking at a cartoon liquid monster.
“What kind of dangerous thing are you carrying around, little cotton ball?”
“Ah, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? Heh… it was actually pretty fun, you know.”
Oh. So that was the issue with autonomous artifacts.
The person who had knocked me out with the pie grinned as she set the ichor down on the table.
I twitched.
The ichor paused for a moment, then shot back toward my body like a missile.
It was trembling, as if terrified.
While I was out cold, Baba Yaga had really let me have it.
“Are you all right?”
“Who? Me?”
Eh?
The words I’d spoken out of habit made Baba Yaga’s expression shift in a way I hadn’t expected. It wasn’t mocking at all. If anything, she looked almost stunned that I would offer concern.
“Who’s worrying about whom right now…?”
Tsk.
The flicker of emotion in Baba Yaga’s eyes was… sympathy, maybe? Or something close to it.
“I’m fine. I just got curious about this research after seeing something so interesting.”
Even after playing with something as deadly as ichor, she acted completely unbothered. S-grade really lived up to the name.
“Modubu. Poison and medicine are basic training for any witch. Remember that.”
“Yes.”
No, I had no intention of becoming a witch.
That was what I thought, but I answered obediently anyway.
“I hadn’t planned to touch any examinee’s precious artifacts, but if that thing had rampaged and turned the place into a mess, the academy would have been in trouble.”
“I see.”
Baba Yaga explained why she’d been fiddling with the ichor, all too cheerfully, as if the whole thing were a childhood game.
Honestly, it didn’t quite sink in how casual she was about it.
“It’s an artifact worthy of the Thunder God’s hammer—only those with the right conditions can wield it. The variability is insane compared to anything else.”
Well, I had taken it because I saw it too. The monster essences I’d absorbed had already reshaped my body, but the ability that actually gave me an edge in real combat was the one that let me mimic any form I wanted.
Essence abilities were always limited to one specific animal type. There were people who could mimic dozens or even hundreds of different monsters, but that wasn’t a matter of ability level—it was pure monster power.
Seeing that in the academy would have made me a raid target for sure.
So I was planning to replace my current form-changing armor with the fluid, polymorphic ichor.
“Though it’s a little early to say, I recommend keeping the color variation within reason if you plan to use it on campus.”
“…Yes.”
It was obvious Baba Yaga already saw me as an automatic admit.
[Hey, we’re still examinees. Is it really okay for the chief proctor to act like that…?]
Yeah, me too.
[Tiss, is there some kind of connection between you and Baba Yaga?]
There’s no way.
I was dying to know.
If I had been out for who knows how long, what had happened to change my mood so much? I couldn’t tell.
Just think it through. The problems that won’t solve themselves are the ones you face head-on.
Time to ask directly.
“Um, Baba Yaga-nim… If I pass the first exam like this, won’t it cause an issue with fairness?”
“Fairness?”
Nyahahaha!!
Baba Yaga waved a hand as if I’d told the funniest joke.
“The academy’s entrance exam has never had anything to do with equality or opportunity. It’s a brutally meritocratic system that picks out the ‘human’ among the talented. Nothing equal about it.”
The Management Bureau aimed for absolute elite status.
One official hunter could protect a thousand civilians.
That was the standard the bureau expected.
Monsters, humanity’s enemies, were terrifyingly strong.
Colossal creatures the size of elephants charged with bone-sword blades longer than a human torso, backed by biological mana cannons that outclassed our best tanks. And those were only mid-tier; even intermediate-grade threats.
In this apocalypse, the bureau’s guideline was clear: a handful of talented individuals were worth far more than a crowd of ordinary people when it came to defending cities and humanity. The academy followed that rule without exception.
“You’re not dissatisfied with the academy’s rules, are you?”
“No, not at all.”
“Then… what? Did you hate that you alone passed a harder exam than everyone else?”
“The exam?”
Wait, what did I do while I was out?
Shan?
[I was out too! I don’t know!]
I asked Shan urgently, but she was just as clueless.
She’d been lying right there when I ate the pie, so I doubted she’d taken any fancy tests.
“Modubu, you don’t seriously think I didn’t know everyone hated my food, do you?”
“No, of course not.”
[Whoa, that’s creepy. So you knew it tasted bad and still made us eat it?]
Baba Yaga’s smile was a little bitter, but as someone who had actually suffered through it, I couldn’t exactly sympathize.
“Once you finished the pie, Modubu’s test was already over. Of course I forced you to eat if you hadn’t.”
“It’s just pie. Did you really have to force me to eat it?”
That made Baba Yaga flash a sly grin.
“You know how monsters with essences always try to escape my pie? I was testing it.”
[What?]
What?
Honestly, I felt a chill.
So she had suspected me all along.
Maybe I should be glad Shan had finished the pie while unconscious.
If the problem had been anything serious, she would have woken up and caused chaos.
Somehow the pie hadn’t triggered the effect Baba Yaga had described.
“Then I… pass?”
“Yes, you pass. But your secret is no longer safe.”
“My secret?”
“This thing.”
Plop.
As she said it, Baba Yaga grabbed my tail.
“Eek!”
I yelped before I could stop myself. The ichor instinctively tried to respond, but Baba Yaga’s presence crushed it flat.
“Oh my. The way this world’s features stand out so sharply in specific parts… fascinating. It matches the records of dozens of different appearances.”
[It tickles!]
Ahh! Hold still!
Baba Yaga’s small hand stroked my fluffy tail with surprising tenderness.
“I’ve never seen a white one quite like you. The flow of your hair—fox? wolf? Or perhaps something closer to myth? A divine beast, maybe.”
[…Did she figure it out and is just teasing?]
Probably not.
She was sharp.
Since Shan was Abaddon’s daughter, her guess about a mythical lineage was basically spot-on.
That was one thing.
She kept stroking.
What was I supposed to do?
[Um… I guess…]
Shan groaned, clearly deep in thought.
“So the reason you carry such a dangerous thing is because of your ears and tail.”
Baba Yaga looked at me with slightly misty eyes.
“Among my old friends, there was one just like you.”
I knew who she meant.
White Ghost.
Baba Yaga and I had both fought Abaddon with the Hero party. When I was building the orphanage, White Ghost had mysteriously appeared, defeated the villains, and vanished.
The name “White Ghost” hadn’t come from slaying monsters.
It came from the Silent Killing technique she mastered—erasing sound, scent, presence, and even existence itself. Originally created to kill humans.
That ability stemmed from deep persecution of other-species users. Countless people with essence abilities had been hunted like monsters in the other-world.
“Could you please keep this a secret?”
I covered my ears and tail with the ichor, trying to look as if I’d been hiding for a while. Baba Yaga nodded, convinced.
Her concern for me seemed to grow stronger.
“Don’t worry. No one else knows. I won’t reveal any information gained outside the exam.”
Baba Yaga might be mischievous, but she never lied.
I could believe her.
[She says that, yet she’s still stroking my tail!]
I knew how tempting my plush, fluffy tail could be, but I was serious now. I held on until I reached my limit.
“Um, please stop touching that?”
Now it was no longer a joke. I was actually embarrassed.
My face burned.
“M-my apologies. My hand just… moved on its own.”
Baba Yaga looked a little awkward too, as if she hadn’t realized what she’d done.
An awkward silence fell.
Hmm-hmm.
Baba Yaga, trying to ease the tension, rummaged in her pocket and pulled out a candy.
“Want a piece of candy?”
Those were her special affection-boosting eye candies, right?
Problematic.
I didn’t want to raise her favorability any further.
Truth be told, her favorability toward me was already higher than I expected.
If I asked, it was possible.
Surprisingly, Baba Yaga was one of the heroines you could romance in the original game.
The community had created a fanbase, calling her “legal loli” and everything.
The only question was why not the protagonist.
Whatever had I done wrong?
Did I see through the illusion? Or because I ate the pie?
Anyway, if I wasn’t the one she was supposed to end up with, then I’d rather end up with Siu. Definitely Siu.
Baba Yaga’s route was notorious in the community for its ultra-hardcore, hellish difficulty once you entered university.
There was no reason for me to charge headfirst into a minefield.
I accepted the candy with a slightly pained smile, but shook my head vigorously to make my refusal clear.
“I’m sorry, I’ll pass.”
“What? If you don’t want it, that’s fine.”
Tch.
Her words were casual, but her pout made it obvious she was a little upset.
[Sigh…]
Shan, don’t look so disappointed.
Now that I thought about it, how had the first exam gone?
I’d been out for quite a while. Had it already ended?
“Um, Baba Yaga-nim, how did the first exam go?”
“If you passed, that’s enough. Why are you curious about the others?”
“Because someone knows.”
While I was unconscious, I’d worried that Dorothy had handled the exam alone.
“Oh? Then you dreamed… no, just watch with your own eyes.”
Slap!
As Baba Yaga gestured, the wall beside me turned into a screen, projecting a vivid image of the examinees.
Outside, it was nearing midnight.
Five figures were shown attacking a queen monster.
Just from watching, I could tell it was the first exam’s core rule.
[Tiss! Dorothy!]
Thank goodness.
I’d been worried I hadn’t protected Dorothy while I was out. But she was fine.
She’d even teamed up with Siu and Sia to take down the queen.
[Eh?]
Eh?
My eyes were drawn to the two blonde girls fighting alongside Dorothy.
Siu and Sia.
Dorothy had teamed up with them after all.
But… why?
[Tiss, those kids…]
Yeah. We saw them before, right? Siu and Sia.
[Right…? I think I remember… but…]
Hmm.
Shan stroked her chin and tilted her head, clearly puzzled.
She glanced between me and the screen, then asked cautiously.
[Why are those two so upset with Tis? They’re the same age as her, right?]
Where had Shan learned that line of questioning?